


Floor is Lava

by sbuggbot



Category: SteamWorld Dig (Video Games)
Genre: Dig 2 Events, Floor is Lava Cave, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-10 09:26:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14734352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbuggbot/pseuds/sbuggbot
Summary: While exploring The Temple of the Destroyer, Dorothy stumbles upon a cave that gives her grief.





	Floor is Lava

Navigating a literal maze of conveyor belts in the Eastern Temple, Dorothy stumbled upon a hidden cave. The caves in the Temple of the Destroyer were another beast compared to the ones in Archaea, she found, these caves were deliberate puzzles and traps created by the cultists. Whether they were meant for their own enjoyment or to deter trespassers, Dorothy was unsure; it really could go either way with this crazy cult. At the insistence of Fen and her own curiosity, she stepped inside to explore.

Inside, Dorothy found a lever, followed by a row of buttons on the ground. The lever didn’t appear to do anything when she first tried it, but when she stepped on the button, a door ahead slammed shut. Presumably, the other three buttons did the same thing.

“So...we just can’t go forward?” Fen asked.

“No, this lever is probably a reset switch...” Dorothy backtracked and pulled the lever, causing the door to slide open. “See? Looks like we just have to get through here without hitting any of these buttons.”

“Piece of cake!”

“Easy for you to say. You can fly,” she replied. Dorothy took a running jump towards the buttons, using her hookshot to close the extra distance over them. Luckily there was a space between the door and the buttons for her to land on.

“Well, that one wasn’t that bad.”

“That was just the first one,” Dorothy said, walking onwards to the next part. This part of the puzzle had a couple of platforms to land on, and buttons all over the floor below and the ceiling.

She managed to carefully slide down the wall and hook onto the side of the first platform. She pulled herself up so she was standing on it. Reaching the next one proved to be more difficult; it required a leap of faith to be able to hook onto correctly. It took a couple tries to get the technique down. She made it to the opposing wall and scaled it easily, completing that part of the puzzle.

The third part of the puzzle proved to be the most difficult. Dorothy was immediately confronted by a series of steps, each step having a button on it. She had to hook her way up the ceiling to continue. Next, there was a shaft that had a bend to it.

Dorothy rounded a corner in the shaft, bumping the button on the floor with her foot.

“Dangit!”

Dorothy tried the corner again, bonking her head on the ceiling and hitting a button.

**“Dangit!”**

Before Dorothy could make it to the corner, Fen deliberately rammed into a button.  
**_“FEN!”_**

Dorothy made it around the corner successfully and looked at the new part of this puzzle. She’d have to knock down a block so she could clear out some dirt that blocked her way. The problem was, the block was high, high up; she’d have to do some climbing to knock it down, all the while avoiding evilly-placed buttons. Probably the worst part was the platform she had to stand on; it had buttons on three of the four sides and a button on the ceiling right above it. She missed the jump twice and had to abort midair and land somewhere safe. Finally, she knocked the block down.

Dorothy used her pressure bombs to clear away the tile of dirt so she could pass through, making it to the end of the puzzle and collecting the upgrade cog. Ahead of her, she saw a sign and a closed door. She moved closer to the sign and read it aloud for Fen’s benefit.

_If the door remains shut_

_The lava has not been your friend_

_Even the slightest touch_

_Leave and enter again_

She took a moment to absorb this. To get to whatever was behind this door, she’d have to clear this room perfectly. She rubbed her face and groaned.

“Do we really need to?” Fen asked.

“If we don’t, I’ll be up at night wondering what was back there,” Dorothy replied, already making her way to the door.

Five attempts and a damaged sanity later, Dorothy made it past the last puzzle without touching a single button. “ _Finally._ This had better be worth it," she grumbled, her lamp burning low. Fen had long since fallen asleep in Dorothy’s furnace, but the blue sprite stirred.

“Well, what’s in there?”

Dorothy stomped past the sign and into the painfully-well-guarded room, finding a torn, red bandana on the floor. “Is that seriously it?” Fen asked.

Dorothy, however, picked up the bandana and sat on the floor, studying it and rubbing it with her thumb. It was Rusty’s old bandana and she knew it. Scrap, she missed him. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, she clung to the hope that he hadn’t been corrupted by Vectron. She tenderly wrapped and tied it around her wrist.

“Hello? _Earth to Dorothy, this is Fen speaking._ ”

Dorothy snapped out of her reverie and got up. “Sorry. Let’s go,” she said as her lamp burnt the last bit of oil.

**Author's Note:**

> The Floor is Lava challenge cave didn't give me as much grief as much as it gave some people, but I didn't really do it the "intended" way. I always skip over it at first and come back with the longshot and Ramjet Vigor, which makes it way easier. I still never beat that cave my first try, though.


End file.
